Reflections on the nature of Life
by TheWickedWitchOfOz
Summary: Can a conversation about Life change two lives? BookverseAU. ElphabaFiyero.


**AN:** This is my first bookverse story and at the moment it is a oneshot -missing scene with the possibility of being extended. The italics at the beginning are taken from page 146 of the book and the scene takes place after Fiyero's second class with Dr Nikidik.

**_Reflections on the nature of Life_**

_"Elphie, you're trembling. I don't mean this in an insulting way but you've gone nearly white with passion. Come on, let's sneak out and get a tea at the café at Railway Square, for old times sake."_

"No."

Elphaba shook her head, her voice still shaking.

"No," she repeated more firmly. "I need to be alone."

She gave Boq no chance to reply but left the room quickly, not even waiting for Nanny to arrive and take over assisting Nessa. Several people noticed her rushed departure, though most of them disregarded it, Nessarose was annoyed and Boq was mildly offended but everyone else paid little attention to the latest antics of the loudmouthed green girl – not when two girls from Briscoe Hall had just made such a dramatic exit with the day's test subject.

Elphaba didn't pay any attention to where she was going, she didn't particularly care as long as it was _away_ from where she had been, there were too many thoughts running through her mind. The murder of Doctor Dillamond. The significance, or lack thereof, of his research. The lion, or possibly Lion, cub – why should matter if it was animal or Animal they had no right to **torture** it!

She stopped walking, wearied by anger and passion, exhausted by the sheer _meaninglessness_ of her life.

A clock struck nearby and she looked up to realise that she had spent over an hour lost in repetitive, unproductive, thought. She leaned on the nearest piece of architecture, the bridge that crossed what people called the Suicide Canal, how fitting for her current thoughts.

Normally she hurried over the bridge and never went near the edge for fear of being shoved over by some careless passer-by but today she looked over the edge at the water. The element she had, according to Nanny, instinctively feared since she was born. The whole family had found out why when she was, briefly, caught in a rainstorm as a child and ran screaming back into the house to have the nasty burn marks tended to by a sympathetic Nanny. Most of the burns faded away fairly quickly, as she had been, except for one on the back of her hand that became infected. The scar wasn't visible anymore but she could still feel the outline of it if she touched it with her other hand.

She didn't remember that first time though other occasions, thankfully few and far between, had given her a strong memory of that sharp burning pain. She looked down at the water and wondered idly if being completely submerged, all at once, would hurt more or less than the drop-by-drop acid sting of rain.

* * *

Fiyero didn't know what prompted him to follow the girl, he'd only seen her twice in Doctor Nikidik's class and the first time he'd been far too busy having a minor fit of hysterics over the indignity of being attacked by a set of _antlers_. He'd not been crying, as many people assumed to judge from comments made later, but muffling his laughter for fear of being thought even more of a halfwit than he already looked. 

To be completely honest with himself, something he did _try_ to do, he had only noticed her the second time because Master Boq - whom he was more acquainted with thanks to classes at the men's college – was talking to her.

'Ellie' it had sounded like her name was, or something to that effect. He'd asked Boq, casually, where she was going in such a hurry and the Munchkin had replied that she was upset about the lion cub, especially after the untimely death of an Animal Professor of the college.

Fiyero agreed that it was cruel to treat a baby, be it animal or Animal, so harshly and it was certainly sad to lose any friend before their time but that still didn't explain why he was following, even stalking, this angry girl. He supposed if she noticed him she would take it as an insult to her particular colouring but that wasn't it either. It wasn't because she was pretty, discounting the colour, his first and only impression so far had been of thinness, sharp angles, and dark hair.

No, he had no reason whatsoever to have spent the last hour following this girl whose name he wasn't even sure of but it still made his stomach tighten nervously when he saw her leaning over the stone railing of the bridge that gave the Suicide Canal its name. He stopped at the edge of the bridge, decided in a split second that 'proper' manners such as the presence of chaperones were hardly an issue when a young woman maybe about to throw herself off a bridge, he called out – not _too_ loudly – to her.

"Good day to you, Miss."

He didn't like to say too much, too quickly, it made his accent more obvious and it was apparently difficult for other people to understand him when that happened.

Elphaba shook herself out of the reverie caused by watching the water.

"Not particularly, Sir," she answered, without looking up. She'd never heard Fiyero speak before so she didn't recognise his voice as that of a fellow student. "In fact I find it to be a rather poor day all in all."

"That wasn't the best thing to say, I suppose, but coming out with the suggestion that the water isn't as deep as it looks seemed crude."

"I'm not sure I take you meaning, Sir," she looked up to see who the audacious stranger was and added, in mild surprise. "Oh, it's you."

"Prince Fiyero of the Vinkus," said Fiyero with a short formal bow. "Of late a resident of Ozma Towers and student of the Three Queens College. I am slightly acquainted with Master Boq of Munchkinland."

"Was that expression 'slightly acquainted'," Elphaba made a gesture with one thin-fingered hand.

"A poor joke at the expense of his height or merely an indication of the…" she raised an eyebrow slightly. "_Shortness_ of your acquaintance?"

Fiyero simply looked at her for a moment, perhaps stunned by the sharp response but pulled himself together quite admirably.

"I've only been here for a week and that is not long enough to claim more that a slight acquaintance with _anyone_, regardless of their height. May I ask what **your** name is?"

"It seems I've forgotten all of my manners, how my sister would despair!" replied Elphaba sarcastically; she found formal introductions a waste of the time of all involved. "If I was being polite I would have introduced myself straight away. Still I suppose we must observe the formalities."

She bobbed an ungraceful curtsey that was far more mocking than polite.

"Elphaba, the Thropp Third Descending of Nest Hardings. Please don't say you're pleased to meet me, I have better things to do than exchange pointless pleasantries with Arjiki Princes."

"So I saw," answered Fiyero noncommittally, though he was pleased by the fact she seemed to know where he was from rather than just referring to him as a 'Winkie' like everyone else did. "May I enquire as to what you were doing before I arrived?"

"It's no secret," replied Elphaba, staring at some point over his shoulder. She suddenly felt desperate for any kind of contact, even just talking, with another person.

"I was reflecting on the nature of death and dying. I don't suppose you would know that my father is a Unionist Minister? No, of course not," she dismissed his lack of knowledge with another multipurpose hand gesture.

"Religions all seem to come with an afterlife or even two – one for the good people and one for the wicked. Of course all of these so-called afterlives rely on a person's **soul** being separated from the flesh in order to pass into this magical mythical place. It seems to me that the point of an afterlife, aside from all of that paradise or punishment nonsense, is to allow people to believe that some part of them will live on long after their flesh and their life has passed from the memory of the world.

Based on that one could presume that when a person _without _a soul dies, of any cause be it murder, suicide, or natural, they are simply erased from the world as easily as…"

Here she paused because she was unused to speaking in metaphor and needed a moment to think of one that suited her topic.

"As writing from a chalkboard and all that remains is chalk dust. In this case the chalk dust is what people remember about her once she's gone, but what they remember about her, what they think _of_ her, none of that can hurt her and when no one remains to remember her then the last vestiges of this soulless being no longer exist in any world or in any life. Life ends and nothing follows it, no punishment for wickedness or reward for goodness. Just the freedom of nothingness, of not being anything."

She fell silent abruptly as if the effort of all the words had worn her out.

_Well_, wondered Fiyero, very quickly, to himself. _What does a person say to **that**?_

"Is that a hypothetical theory or were you planning to test it? Because if it were the latter I would feel honour bound to try and talk you out of it."

"And how would you do that?" asked Elphaba, her curiousity awakened by his bold statement. "_Hypothetically_, of course."

"Well, I might mention again that the water isn't very deep. If you're lucky, and by lucky I mean successful, you'd hit the stone bottom on the right angle – no pun intended – and break your neck instantly. But if you were extremely unlucky you'd just break nearly every bone in your body but your neck and end up stuck in a hospital for months. All in all there are more effective and reliable methods."

"Those are good points," agreed Elphaba. "But your basic premise is faulty."

"How so?"

"You wouldn't believe my reason, I'm sure."

"Really?"

"What do you think the chances of success, as you defined it before, would be in this hypothetical situation if the person making the attempt was allergic to water?"

"That's _impossible_! I mean water is everywhere, how could someone be allergic to it?"

"I did say you wouldn't believe it."

"I don't! I think you're making fun of me, Miss Elphaba."

"I shall prove it to you then."

Fiyero raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"Come on then," he challenged. Elphaba placed her hand flat on the bridge next to a small puddle of rainwater.

"Put a drop of water on the back of my hand."

Fiyero looked mildly annoyed and fully expected her to pretend that it hurt as 'proof' of what she was claiming. He dipped his finger in the puddle and, rather than letting it drop from his hand and miss, he pressed his finger against the back of her hand for a moment. She hissed sharply, which he thought was rather poorly acted, and he lifted his finger away.

To his extreme surprise, and obvious dismay, the spot where the water had made contact with her skin was blistered as if he had put a red-hot poker against her skin instead of a single **drop** of water.

"The water it…"

Fiyero looked from Elphaba's hand to the canal and back again.

"And you were going to…"

"I was examining the idea _hypothetically_," replied Elphaba expressionlessly and shrugged. "What concern is it of yours anyway? You don't even know me."

"I'd be concerned about any person who felt driven to such extremes, even if they were hiding it behind sarcasm and a blasé attitude to death."

"I'm not a person, dear fellow, not really. I'm no more real than the wind."

"You seem real to me," replied Fiyero intensely. Suddenly it became more than just stopping her from doing this like he would try to stop anyone, suddenly he wanted very much to save her even though she didn't act like someone who need saving, definitely didn't want his help, and he had no idea what she might need saving from.

"Then you have a fantastic sense of imagination. Your company is quite tiresome, were you planning to lurk around here for much longer?"

Elphaba didn't like the way he was looking at her, there was something very disconcerting in his eyes when he looked at her and told her she was real. Why was he even out this way? The canal was usually deserted at this time of day and she vaguely recalled Boq mentioning another class after Doctor Nikidik's.

"I plan on 'lurking' until you leave, on foot I might add."

"And that would make you feel like you've accomplished something would it?"

Elphaba replied sarcastically, her default reaction to just about every situation in life.

"It wouldn't be as if you'd done anything to stop me, delay my actions perhaps. But I suppose stopping me now is enough to stop you from feeling guilty later is that it? A salve for your conscience so that, should you hear of a certain tragedy, you could assure yourself that you couldn't have done anymore than you did."

"That's not it at all!" protested Fiyero vehemently, his Vinkus accent even more apparent with the emotions in his voice. "Maybe that's how people behave where _you_ come from, maybe it's even how they behave around here, but it's certainly not how I believe a person should act. I am sorry you find my attempt at compassion for you so offensive, Miss Elphaba!"

Elphaba was astounded by his outburst, not so much the fact of it but the content and his sincerity. She suspected it to be false sincerity covering dismay at the fact she had seen through him so easily but some deeper instinct, developed throughout a life of being stared at and ridiculed, told her that he really did mean it.

Her eyes went so wide after he paused to take a deep breath that Fiyero couldn't help noticing the unusual colour of them. Brown eyes were nothing new to him nearly every person he'd met before he came to Shiz had brown eyes. Her eyes were such a dark brown as to almost be black while she was looking down then, as she'd looked up at him with her eyes open so wide, he noticed that they were flecked with the tiniest specks of gold.

"Elphaba Thropp!"

Elphaba flinched perceptibly at the shrill note in Nessa's voice.

"Nessa," she said, stepping around Fiyero to look at her sister and Nanny.

"Elphaba Thropp!" repeated Nessa, clearly too overcome by outrage to do more than that.

"What is the meaning of all this impropriety?" demanded Nanny, tightening her grip on Nessa's waist as the girl shook with emotion. "First you leave your poor sister all alone in that funny professor's classroom and now we find you consorting with a young man of rather dubious nature?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said Fiyero as the older woman, perhaps the girls' Ama, glared at him suspiciously. "But there is no impropriety here. Miss Thropp and I share a common acquaintance, Master Boq, and we happened to meet upon the bridge. Naturally I stopped to pay courtesy to the lady. I beg your pardon again, ma'am, and bid you good day."

Since the women were obviously headed away from Shiz University Fiyero bowed and walked past them, lingering in earshot long enough to hear what happened next.

"Is that true, Elphaba?" demanded Nessa sceptically. "Did you really stop to exchange courtesies with a boy?"

"Not on purpose, Nessa!" insisted Elphaba. "He nearly walked into me, what else could I do? You both complain often enough that my manners are lax yet when I do display my good manners you rebuke me for it! Do tell me what I must do to be socially correct enough for you and I shall endeavour to do so if only to gain some peace and quiet!"

"That's enough of that, girls, Nanny is getting far too old for your squabbling. Come along, Elphaba. Nessa and I are going shopping, you can come along so I can keep an eye on you like I was dragged out of my retirement to do!"

Elphaba didn't say anything, which nanny clearly took as agreement. She gently nudged Nessarose into movement and didn't look behind to see if Elphaba had followed or not.

Elphaba paused for just an instant, looking straight at Fiyero as if she was going to say something, then she shook her head and hurried after her sister.


End file.
